Best way to Find a Guild Off Server?
 

Helping a friend of mine look into switching off our current server Scilla, mostly because of various issues in guild and also I'd say Population. More and more guilds are disbanding and everyone needs more members. In the case of our current guild its been too much change and too much edrama because of it.

I realize that WoW has a recruitment forum, but that seems to be hard to find a fit aswell as the fact its putting in alot of trust in someones advirtisement if your talking about transfering. The way I considered looking at first was going through some Realm forums and checking out progression threads and looking through some websites and asking questions on those realm forums.

Is there however maybe another way I'm not aware of like a website alota people use where guilds have profiles or something along those lines. Also if it helps any the level of player I'm talking about would be Gruul/Mag capable.

Any help I would really apprieciate.

By and large, a guild who goes through the trouble of using the cross-Realm recruitment forum is respectable through sheer resource-using. I'd trust it more than you think (my guild uses it).

Also, Progression Threads are an easy way to check that guilds are truthful - I consider that to come with the territory and should be part of any transferree's checklist of things to do (along with the guild's website, and talking with the guild management via a level 1 before hitting the Transfer button).

Worldofraids recruitment forum maybe, but usually the more top end guilds post there.

I'd have to say bosskillers at this point. We've received a number of exceptional apps from them.

Yes their ranking system is silly, but you are still going to at least get some idea of where many of the top guilds are.

Going to second bosskillers at it is a pretty prime destination these days. Also, don't discount the guild recruitment forum on the WoW site. I use this whenever I'm recruiting and it usually brings some good apps in. A good guild will have a good recruitment post that has all the details you need to know whether you may be a fit. The forum moves fast so don't be afraid to go 5 or 15 pages back to find an appropriate guild.

As an officer in a bit of a niche guild (PVE server with 9pm PST raid starts) we've had to rely heavily on off-server recruiting. The WOW Guild Recruitment forum definately can be effective as probably a 1/3rd or more of our membership is from off-realm and recruited via that forum. The main thing is trying to be as thorough as possible when interviewing possible transfers (would feel bad having their $25 go down the shitter) and I would suspect that the same applies to people that are looking to transfer. Our most succesfull transfer members usually made an alt on our realm and talked to a bunch of members beforehand as well as jumping on vent to talk with the officers.

Use as many resources as you can find. Bosskillers lists progression well. WoWWiki lets you sort servers by time zone and PVE/PVP. Do take some time to go through the Guild Recruitment forums. It's a fast-moving forum, but the guilds that post there are genuinely interested in transfers. Finally, visit their webpage: is there profanity on the front page? How do they respond to others who have applied (if they have a public application forum)?

Once you've found a few options, make an alt and contact an officer to chat. It's just as important you get your questions answered about the guild as they get information about you. Some guilds frown upon ingame contact, but in the case of a transfer I wouldn't waste my time if they didn't want to talk to me.

1) Make an alt and talk to people in that guild, and not just the officers.

2) Hang around Shat city (if you can make it there as an alt), or IF/Org and listen to the chat.

3) Check the AH as prices can vary from 1 server to another. And it may give you an idea how to make some gold if you can buy low (1 server) and sell high (another).

4) Talk to people in other guilds, ask them questions about the server, the prospective guild, etc.

5) Make use of the Armory.

Curiously, what does that have to do with anything?

I suppose he meant that it might tell you something about the maturity of the guild leadership, or at least the webmaster.

I don't know - I don't think it has much bearing on anything myself, either.

If there is, the average age of the guild is either 12 or they're probably a group of people more focused on screwing around and having fun together than raiding. If there isn't, they're probably more serious (but not nessesarily better) raiders. Saying something like "swearing = good" or "swearing = bad" would be stupid, but you can learn a lot about a guild just based on what thier news updates are like.

It's not all-encompassing by any means. If you go to my guild's News page, all of our kill posts are like "LOL STOP USING IMAGESHACK NOOB" or things like that, when in fact, we're pretty hardcore and not immature at all. It's just the public face we put forward I guess.

BTW, that quote is almost directly what I said to the guild screenshotter on our latest kill. =(

I would love to see what evidence you base this statement on. I think that if we took a tour of some sites of the top guilds in the world, we would see that a good portion of them don't exactly censor themselves. If you are looking for a guild with a more family-oriented or less lewd atmosphere that's fine, but saying they are filled with 12-year-olds or are incompetent because they reflect their personality onto their homepage isn't accurate at all, I think.

I know my personal tendency is to respect someone who can express their opinions in more creative ways than %$#$, @$#&, and *@@#. Profanity makes me think you are less intelligent... I'm not sure why, but that's the impression I get. First impressions matter.

Uh, I didn't say that. In fact, the very next sentence (which you decided not to quote) says'Saying something like "swearing = good" or "swearing = bad" would be stupid'. I'm not sure how you then proceeded to conclude that I thought any guild with swearing on it's homepage is 'filled with 12-year-olds or are incompetent', as I certainly do consider both of those options bad.